This is what happens when players get arrogant

[Canford Cliffs]

As an Indian fan, I am ashamed of this kind of performance. But this was bound to happen when players get arrogant and consider themselves larger than life. Test cricket baachon ka khel nehi (red ball game is not childs play).

Pakistan played 3 practice games in England for 2 test matches. Our boys played the Afg test a month ago but the likes of Vijay, Shami, Rahane etc shown no interest to fly Eng early and play for the A team. They rather choose to stay back at home.

ODI series gets over on 15th July and 1st test was suppose to start on 1st Aug. It was a 15 day break but they decided to take holiday and play only 1 practice game. The team was staying in St. James hotel in London and was suppose to go to Chelmsford to play Essex. Heat wave was going on and Indian players were not willing to travel Chelmsford as the hotel there didnt had proper A/C. But since the London hotel was already booked for other guests, they couldnt extend their stay and were forced to vacate and go to Chelmsford. BTW, Chelmsford is an hour drive from London.

Even after going there, Shastri was not happy with Essex team since they decided to rest some of their senior players like Bopara etc. He demanded a full strength Essex side or they would reduce the 4 day game to 2 days. Essex pleaded infront of Indian team that tickets are already being sold and they would suffer loss. Shastri said, nothing works...max we will play is 3 days. Hume in club cricketers ke saath practice nehi chahiye.

All teams when touring Eng travel in team bus, its a culture going for ages. But Shstri's India boys dont give a damn about those traditions. If you look into their instagram, some players travelled by trains with wives, some by private cars...no accountability at all. Team bus, team bonding, team protocol...what are those?? Hume to England me train ki safar karni hai.

1st test gets over on 4th day and there were 6 day break before Lords test. Team decided to practice only 1 day because aparently practice makes no difference. There are 9 days gap now between 3rd and 4th test and no practice matches scheduled. Players are already given holidays on those 9 days and also their WAGs are joining.

Okay, CAC (a committee in BCCI consists of Ganguly/Sachin/VVS) appointed Zak and Dravid as bowling and batting coach respectively for overseas tour. Shastri said, I dont need. I would have my friends Bharat Arun and Sanjay Bangar rather.

I am not even going towards Bollywood hedgemony and brand stuff that is going in the team. If you are from Bunty Sachdev group, you get immidiate team selection.

This is what happens when you remove a displined man like Kumble and give the reigns to a maveric like Shastri. This is the reality of team India. It has undone all the good works done by Ganguly, Dravid, Sachin etc over the years.

A big overhaul is required for any changes to happen. But dont expect anything from these arrogant bunches. So Indian fans, just grind your teeth and wait for this phase to pass.

 

[Thomaskutty]

Pakistan played 3 practice games in England for 2 test matches. Our boys played the Afg test a month ago but the likes of Vijay, Shami, Rahane etc shown no interest to fly Eng early and play for the A team. They rather choose to stay back at home.

Hmmm, is it that simple though ...I mean, now that India have had two test matches practice, do you expect them to compete well in the last three tests? I am not sure, especially if the conditions are extreme like Lords.

 

[pakistani pride]

LOL and what about 2011 and what about last tour of ENG?
No one got arrogant this is the true quality or lack of quality. Just look at the openers. Also yesterday after 50 overs Eng had scored over 200 runs...

 

[Snow]

I am ashamed of our team. Full of arrogant batsman, who can only hit when ball doesn't swing more than 0.01 mm. It is not that England is good of team, samething happened against SriLanka, where they were blown in swinging conditions.

 

[Canford Cliffs]

2011 was a different story. Most of the players were over the hill, our best bowler (Zak) broke down on 1st day at Lords...situation got so worse that they had to call an injured Sehwag and an unfit RP Singh who was holidaying in USA in the middle of the tour. Even then Dravid tried his best at that series. That team was incompetent but was not arrogant.

Here, Dinesh Karthik fly to Copenhagen for holiday just 5 days before 1st test

Yeh result to hona hi tha.

 

[enkidu_]

Vikrant Gupta brought the exact same points, and I guess that's the general perception : the lack of tour matches/no "respect" given to Essex, not travelling on bus as a "team", Dinesh Karthik going on holiday in Denmark with his wife DURING the tour (!), etc

You can see by their body language that, apart from Kohli and Shami, they just don't seem interested in cricket. Look at Rahane's latest dismissal, what was that from India's best overseas batsman (until recently) ?Fame has gotten into their head, they think they'll be able to capitalize all the lost credibility with IPL heroics or something.

Someone should somehow force them to be aware of the fact that all the fame, money, ... is because of the Indian public, which perhaps doesn't expect their team to win everyday, but expect them to at least be interested in the win.

 

[pakistani pride]

2011 was a different story. Most of the players were over the hill, our best bowler (Zak) broke down on 1st day at Lords...situation got so worse that they had to call an injured Sehwag and an unfit RP Singh who was holidaying in USA in the middle of the tour. Even then Dravid tried his best at that series. That team was incompetent but was not arrogant.

Here, Dinesh Karthik fly to Copenhagen for holiday just 5 days before 1st test

Yeh result to hona hi tha.

But you have always been losing away tests mostly. So this is pretty normal.

 

[Stewie]

These are just ramblings.. England bowlers were too good and this and that won’t help fix it. Takes years ofnpratice, coaching, experience and dedication to master this sort of stuff and Kohli has all those qualities that’s why he succeeded.

 

[Sherlock]

Think the practice part and getting used to the conditions came on the back of the LOI's, but they should've had at-least one Test in England conditions the way Pakistan did.

Maybe the T20's series victory gave them a sense of fake bravado and arrogance that they didn't need, and then winning the 1st ODI only solidified that arrogance. But once England got their heads down and started playing the way they can do it's been nothing short of fantastic execution of plans and tactics.

There's still 3 Tests to go, and if India can get a win next up then they'll be heading into the penultimate games with their tails up, just like England have.

 

[babajee]

If all this is true... then

 

[Markhor]

Shastri has a lot to answer for - you'd have thought he'd have learned from the South Africa tour when preoaration was inadequate there. It was foolish to think the limited overs matches would prepare the side for the Test series and help them acclimatise. The white ball in England nowadays doesn't swing an inch whilst the pitches are dead flat.

Then shaving off a day of your ONLY practice match vs Essex was the height of arrogance.

Pakistan owe a lot to their two draws in England to their preparation. Playing Ireland who were oumoed up for their first ever Test on a green tinged wicket, as well matches against Kent, Northants and Leicestershire meant the team were battle hardened come the first Test.

 

[Stewie]

You can not compare indianand Pakistan it’s not fair.. Indians play a lot of cricket and they are mostly just burnt out.. expecting them to have as many practice games as Pakistan is not right since we play less than half the cricket India does.

Also there is no comparison of the bowling strengths of the two. india would stand a chance to win if their bowlers can exploit the conditions as well as England and Pakistani seamers. If not forget about.

 

[Pete Rose]

You can not compare indianand Pakistan it’s not fair.. Indians play a lot of cricket and they are mostly just burnt out.. expecting them to have as many practice games as Pakistan is not right since we play less than half the cricket India does.

Also there is no comparison of the bowling strengths of the two. india would stand a chance to win if their bowlers can exploit the conditions as well as England and Pakistani seamers. If not forget about.

India’s bowling all but won them the first match. The bowling is not to blame

 

[90MPH]

There was no guarantee that having the extra practice matches and extra sessions would have made a difference but at least it would have given India a chance.

The preparation for this tour has been an absolute disaster for India - this actually started 1 year ago when Kumble was sacked and now you have a cheerleader in Shastri.

The players don’t just have rockstar attitude but they seem to have too much power to dictate terms.

I really don’t want to bring money factor as clearly this doesn’t effect some players like Kohli but you can honestly say the amount of wealth the players get will not affect their attitude ??

I like Kohli but he has too much say in he team, not sure if he is captain material either as he seems confused at times especially with the selection and chopping of players every game.

Regarding selection why on earth did they select Kaldeep in seaming conditions ?? Day 1 was washed out so that should have given thenaclue.

And as the OP says the way Shastri in particular treated the Essex tour match was absolutely disgusting. Many English cricket pundits were fuming and rightfully so.

If they have any sense then bring back Kimble, and have Dravid and Zameer in the setup.

 

[Stewie]

India’s bowling all but won them the first match. The bowling is not to blame

It didn’t. It made the game competitive but didn’t win. That’s the key.. they can have a few good sessions here and there but it’s not consistently good to exploit overseas conditions and win test matches, and that’s been characteristic of indian teams of all eras.

 

[Pete Rose]

I would put the blame mostly on the coaching staff and admin. India played two solid warm up game in 2014. The first two matches they were competitive. The players are the same, the coach and captain are different

 

[Pete Rose]

It didn’t. It made the game competitive but didn’t win. That’s the key.. they can have a few good sessions here and there but it’s not consistently good to exploit overseas conditions and win test matches, and that’s been characteristic of indian teams of all eras.

Their batsmen lost the game. The rest of your moving goalpost has nothing to do with your point about comparing the bowling for England and Pakistan vs India

 

[Pete Rose]

I have no issues with players being rockstars. It’s down to team Managment to make them gel

 

[shaaik]

I was expecting India to put up a good fight at least before the series started but it seems to be going all downhill at the moment. The batsmen are all at sea with no confidence in their abilities. Even kohli seems to be losing his mojo as the series wears on. Imagine what would hv been the level of desperation in the Indian camp had kohli not scored that century in the first innings of the first test.

 

[Stewie]

Their batsmen lost the game. The rest of your moving goalpost has nothing to do with your point about comparing the bowling for England and Pakistan vs India

What moving goalpost? I am failing to understand that line..

I know it’s hard to accept if you are an indian fan that your batting is not invincible but let’s face it.. when conditions are not in your favor it won’t matter the amount of practice and whatnot. You will suffer.. you put these same teams against each other in India on their tracks and the likes of rahane and Vijay would be raking up double hundreds.. apart from Kohli, this battIng is simply not good enough to face the standard of bowling.. all England bowlers were curving the balls @45 degrees and both ways and then seaming them off the pitch. You have to be extremely skillful to score off them. So the conditions and the pitches were there.. who failed to take advantage of them? Answer: indian bowling..

So I am not putting the blame squarely on bowling I am just saying collectively Indians were just not good enough but it’s also unrealistic for their batting to conquer the England bowling in these conditions. It’s NOT gonna happen!!

 

[Pete Rose]

What moving goalpost? You am failing tnot understand that line..

I know it’s hard to accept if you are an indian fan that your batting is invincible but let’s face it.. when conditions are not in your favor it won’t matter the amount of practice and whatnot. You will suffer.. you put these same teams against each other in India on their tracks and the likes of rahane and Vijay would be raking up double hundreds.. apart from Kohli, this battIng is simply not good enough to face the standard of bowling.. all England bowlers were curving the balls @45 degrees and both ways and then seaming them off the pitch. You have to be extremely skillful to score off them. So the conditions and the pitches were there.. who failed to take advantage of them? Answer: indian bowling..

So I am not putting the blame squarely on bowling I am just saying collectively Indians were just not good enough but it’s also unrealistic for their batting to conquer the England bowling in these conditions. It’s NOT gonna happen!!

Word salad

 

[shaaik]

Those who think that practise or sides games would hv made no difference to India's performance should watch today's show during lunch where Sangakara was talking about the merits of practise

 

[Stewie]

Word salad

So be it.. you can live in your own world.. just point me to the time in history when the indian batting actually “succeeded” in England on a consistent basis.

 

[cricketerB94]

Talking about arrogance, Indian fans, media and pundits (Sehwag e.t.c.) are no less arrogant. It seems like the arrogance is in their culture and these players are also a part of their culture.

 

[Pete Rose]

So be it.. you can live in your own world.. just point me to the time in history when the indian batting actually “succeeded” in England on a consistent basis.

Define consistent

 

[Noman]

What moving goalpost? I am failing to understand that line..

I know it’s hard to accept if you are an indian fan that your batting is not invincible but let’s face it.. when conditions are not in your favor it won’t matter the amount of practice and whatnot. You will suffer.. you put these same teams against each other in India on their tracks and the likes of rahane and Vijay would be raking up double hundreds.. apart from Kohli, this battIng is simply not good enough to face the standard of bowling.. all England bowlers were curving the balls @45 degrees and both ways and then seaming them off the pitch. You have to be extremely skillful to score off them. So the conditions and the pitches were there.. who failed to take advantage of them? Answer: indian bowling..

So I am not putting the blame squarely on bowling I am just saying collectively Indians were just not good enough but it’s also unrealistic for their batting to conquer the England bowling in these conditions. It’s NOT gonna happen!!

Indian team has spend alot of time in England. Indian batsman just do not have the Grit and are home track bully - their Can only play cricket on flat tracks. I love watching indian cricket. But This is shamefull and disgracefull performance. Bcci should send Indian woman team to England and let let Them face England men team. Result might be same, but their Will be a fight and contest. Mamoon Kahan hain, zinda hain Kya?

 

[JaDed]

Talking about arrogance, Indian fans, media and pundits (Sehwag e.t.c.) are no less arrogant. It seems like the arrogance is in their culture and these players are also a part of their culture.

What? Except for a certain click bait BhaiJaan no ICT fan was as arrogant as you are making it seem. ICT deserves all the flak but why should the media and fans get flak for ICT's performance.

 

[Stewie]

Define consistent

I know for someone living in their own world your definition would probably vary a lot from the rest, but for the sake of this argument, let’s go with yours for this one.

 

[Pete Rose]

I know for someone living in their own world your definition would probably vary a lot from the rest, but for the sake of this argument, let’s go with yours for this one.

Would you call Pakistan’s batting on this years tour to England consistent?

 

[Savak]

Again i repeat, people are barking at the wrong person. Ravi Shastri did not select himself, everyone knew exactly what he bought to the table from the very beginning i.e. nothing. It was Kohli who had Anil Kumble removed and then lobbied very hard to have him replaced with Shastri.

It is Kohli who likes to humiliate his team mates and others with his arrogrant body language and demeanour where they mean nothing to him because he is a better player than them. It is Kohli who is chopping, changing the playing 11 in every game and making his decisions with regards to team selection, team tactics, whether they will have practice games or not.

Lastly Kohli got 4 chances in his 148 runs and has still not removed the technical flaws in his game which he should have learnt from the experience he had from the 2014 tour that in these English conditions you have to properly grind for your runs and literally adopt a Boycott approach towards batting when the ball is moving around all over the place and his approach of playing his shots like he is used to in the flat IPL type pitches in India and wickets like Australia and South Africa will not work here.

People used to worship Teenda as a god but with Kohli they are taking it to a whole new level.

Lastly if anything it appears that Kohli is as distracted of the field as his team mates if not more. Just check his twitter page where he is photographed shopping and touring England all over the place.

He rightfully should take the blame for everything that has transpired on this tour.

 

[mak36]

Again i repeat, people are barking at the wrong person. Ravi Shastri did not select himself, everyone knew exactly what he bought to the table from the very beginning i.e. nothing. It was Kohli who had Anil Kumble removed and then lobbied very hard to have him replaced with Shastri.

It is Kohli who likes to humiliate his team mates and others with his arrogrant body language and demeanour where they mean nothing to him because he is a better player than them. It is Kohli who is chopping, changing the playing 11 in every game and making his decisions with regards to team selection, team tactics, whether they will have practice games or not.

Lastly Kohli got 4 chances in his 148 runs and has still not removed the technical flaws in his game which he should have learnt from the experience he had from the 2014 tour that in these English conditions you have to properly grind for your runs and literally adopt a Boycott approach towards batting when the ball is moving around all over the place and his approach of playing his shots like he is used to in the flat IPL type pitches in India and wickets like Australia and South Africa will not work here.

People used to worship Teenda as a god but with Kohli they are taking it to a whole new level.

Lastly if anything it appears that Kohli is as distracted of the field as his team mates if not more. Just check his twitter page where he is photographed shopping and touring England all over the place.

He rightfully should take the blame for everything that has transpired on this tour.

You should post this in the Sarfaraz v Kohli captaincy thread.

 

[AssassinatedDevil]

I don't know how many points that the OP makes are true, but if they are, then I agree with all of them. Team bonding is an essential element that holds a team together. These guys act more like models instead of cricketers.

 

[mkyawar]

Watching sports tak, none of these players take advice from the greats such as gavaskar, dravid and tendulkar. Also I think these guys are very arrogant and the coach said that this is the most balanced team to go to England. These players used to say " khud to yeh oont nahi sota or agalo ko bhee nahin sonay daita (referring to kumble). Not travelling in buses and refusing to play practice matches. One should atleast prepare for the exam, you fail or pass is another thing.

 

[kuskash]

If this is true then bunch of cricketers are playing without any interests or seriousness and poor fans are getting nuts and trolled over.

 

[giri26]

I wrote at the start of the tour that Indian batting is suspect. Vijay, Pujara, Rahane all have gone backwards. I am running out of patience for Rahul as well. The guy scored a hundred in the First T20I and then has been a dud for the rest of the series. He got 8 innings (4 in Tests and 4 in LOI) since that hundred and has scored zilch. I feel the Trent Bridge test will be his last as well along with Vijay, Pujara and Rahane. India needs to bring in Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari (Did very well on the A Tour and doing well now against South Africa A) and Rishabh Pant.

India also needs to bring in Mohammad Siraj. He has been brilliant against South Africa A and also out bowled all the Indian pacers comfortably in the A tour to UK. Time to ring in the changes if India wants to at least compete overseas in few years. We will probably lose 4-0 or 5-0 here and lose in Australia as well. At least lose with a young team who will show some fight and courage than the current batting.

 

[iniqbal223]

players were not arrogance, it shows how team management functions. The same bunch of players are hard working under different coach.
Shastri should be sacked.

 

[Pete Rose]

I don't know how many points that the OP makes are true, but if they are, then I agree with all of them. Team bonding is an essential element that holds a team together. These guys act more like models instead of cricketers.

I read some of Kohli’s comment from the presser. He paid a lot of attention to small mental adjustments rather than technical ones. On the one hand, I do agree that you can’t re-invent your technique in the middle of a series, but on the other hand, making the whole thing sound like a mental game is oversimplifying it and letting the coaching staff off the hook. He said that we need to be osprive and we should be wanting the match to start tomorrow and not five days from now. I am not sure if I agree; India need each of those five days to go out and practice hard.

 

[Stewie]

Would you call Pakistan’s batting on this years tour to England consistent?

When is Pakistan’s batting ever consistent?

If anything they are consistently inconsistent!

 

[Rahul1]

You can not compare indianand Pakistan it’s not fair.. Indians play a lot of cricket and they are mostly just burnt out.. expecting them to have as many practice games as Pakistan is not right since we play less than half the cricket India does.

Also there is no comparison of the bowling strengths of the two. india would stand a chance to win if their bowlers can exploit the conditions as well as England and Pakistani seamers. If not forget about.

India's batting lost us the first test and there is no doubt about it.

 

[Savak]

players were not arrogance, it shows how team management functions. The same bunch of players are hard working under different coach.
Shastri should be sacked.

Dont blame Shastri, blame the man who kicked out the previous coach to bring Shastri.

 

[Savak]

I wrote at the start of the tour that Indian batting is suspect. Vijay, Pujara, Rahane all have gone backwards. I am running out of patience for Rahul as well. The guy scored a hundred in the First T20I and then has been a dud for the rest of the series. He got 8 innings (4 in Tests and 4 in LOI) since that hundred and has scored zilch. I feel the Trent Bridge test will be his last as well along with Vijay, Pujara and Rahane. India needs to bring in Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill, Hanuma Vihari (Did very well on the A Tour and doing well now against South Africa A) and Rishabh Pant.

India also needs to bring in Mohammad Siraj. He has been brilliant against South Africa A and also out bowled all the Indian pacers comfortably in the A tour to UK. Time to ring in the changes if India wants to at least compete overseas in few years. We will probably lose 4-0 or 5-0 here and lose in Australia as well. At least lose with a young team who will show some fight and courage than the current batting.

Lol, the only solution is for India to just play in India and the Sub continent.

Or if they are really serious about competing in England in these conditions then develop some wickets at home which aid seamers so that the batsmen can play in all sorts of conditions.

 

[giri26]

Lol, the only solution is for India to just play in India and the Sub continent.

Or if they are really serious about competing in England in these conditions then develop some wickets at home which aid seamers so that the batsmen can play in all sorts of conditions.

Young Indian players play in all sort of conditions. India's A team nowadays travel all around the world under Rahul Dravid. The A team was in England just a month ago where Prithvi Shaw, Rishabh Pant, Hanuma Vihari et all did extremely well. Mohammad Siraj picked up wickets and did very well. So that is not an issue. The issue is that the Indian test team has not been picking any new faces for years now. The same names have been playing. The new players who have the exposure of playing in varying conditions, never get a look in. The last time the Indian test team had anyone young was Karun Nair and we know what he does now, carries drinks very well.

 

[Aman]

Kohli is running the show, Shastri is just a yes man.

 

[The_Odd_One]

I don’t know how much of that is true but it’s shocking!

 

[Mobashir]

Their may be some arrogance, but overall your team is just not good enough.

It’s a bunch of overrated players.

 

[Usman]

Arrogance maybe, but I actually think there is a lack of quality too. When you think of past Indian batsmen, the names Tendulker, Shehwag, David, VVS come to mind among others. Forget being in the same league, Kohli aside, the rest of the batting line up isn't on the same planet as these past greats.

Maybe the arrogance comes from the complete commercialisation of the Indian game. The fact that by hitting a couple of fours and sixes, or bowling four overs, you can become an instant Indian millionaire. Quality only influences the size of the reward, if that, but ultimately everyone gets rich quick. In those circumstances, how can you expect these young Indians to put in the hard yards for the much greater challenge of test cricket, where you have to work much harder for a fraction of the reward. Is it really a surprise that they are getting exposed, when you consider that Indian cricket is now only about money?